LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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MEMOIR 



JAMES BUCHANAN, 



OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



PUBLISHED BY THE 



DEMOCRATIC STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE 



f inuisiill);un(i. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

PRINTED BY C. SHERMAN AND SON. 

1856. 



'J132 



MEMOIR 



JAMES BUCHANAN, OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



The reputation of our public men constitutes an important 
element in the history of our country. It cannot be too far 
above reproach. The example of an upright statesman during 
his lifetime, is a source of pride and power to his countrymen, 
and a consoling and purifying remembrance after he has been 
gathered to his fathers. In James Buchanan we find a character 
without suspicion or stain. During forty years of active and 
almost constant service in high political positions, he has main- 
tained the same tranquil deportment, the same scrupulous regard 
for the truth, the same dignified avoidance of corrupt com- 
pliances and combinations. The posterity of the friends among 
whom he spent his youth, are living around him ; and the pro- 
phecies of those, who saw the promise of his early years, are 
recalled by their descendants, who rejoice in the maturity of his 
intellect, the sagacity of his statesmanship, and the long list of 
his public and private virtues, as the abundant fulfilment of the 
predictions of their fathers. Personal malignity has never yet 
inflicted dishonor upon his good name. Slander, exhaustless in 
its resources, and unsleeping in its vengeance, has failed in every 
attempt against him. 

Men contemplate Mr. Buchanan, at this day, not as one 
whom envy and wrong have persecuted, but as a great public 
character, who has passed through the fiery furnace without 
the smell of smoke upon his garments, and who stands out ready 
to submit to the test of any scrutiny into his conduct as a citizen 
and a statesman. The day has' come which is to prove that 
such talents as his, such experience, such integrity, such fixed 
habits of wise forecast, are essential to the great destiny for 
which he seems to have been reserved by his countrymen, who 
always demand the highest qualities of statesmanship in the 
highest position in their gift. Where, indeed, is there to 
be found a living public man, who presents so exemplary 
and so consistent a record, running through so many years? 



MEMOIR OF JAMES BUCHANAN. O 

Even among those who have departed the scene of human 
action, there were few who could point to a more unbroken 
series 'of services in defence of great principles. If we look 
down the gallery of the long gone past, and take up the_ por- 
traits of the great actors of other days, how comparatively 
few there are who exhibited in their lives and in their works a 
more conscientious and high-souled devotion to the doctrines of 
the Federal Constitution and to the rights of the States of the 
American Union ! The course of Mr. Buchanan has been nei- 
ther erratic nor irregular ; it has harmonized with the purest 
examples of the past and the present, and with all those saving 
doctrines which he has devotedly practised and defended ; and 
whether in the House or in the Senate of the American Con- 
gress, whether immersed in foreign relations, whether at the 
head of the most important department of the government under 
the memorable administration of Polk, or whether reposing in 
the calm seclusion of his own home, his well-balanced intellect 
and his patriotic devotion to the Union, have always been dis- 
played at the right moment, and with the most striking effect. 
Progressive, not in the spirit of lawlessness, but in harmony with 
the steady advance of our institutions on this continent, and our 
example among the nations of the earth ; conservative, not in 
veneration for antiquated abuses, but in sacred regard for rights 
which cannot be violated without destroying the fundamental 
law ; he fails in no single element of public usefulness, political 
orthodoxy, or personal character. Such is the impression made 
upon those who study the history, public and private, of James 
Buchanan ; such the conclusive answer which the open and spot- 
less volume of his career makes to all who have conceived it 
necessary to attack his eminent deservings and his lofty capa- 
cities. 

Mr. Buchanan is in the sixty-fifth year of his age, and in the 
vigor of health, intellectually and physically. He was born in 
the County of Franklin, in the State of Pennsylvania, of honest 
and industrious parents, and may truly be called the architect_ of 
his own fortunes. Having received a good education, he studied 
the profession of the law, in the County of Lancaster, in the^ same 
State, which has ever since been his home. In 1814 and 1815 he 
was elected to the State Legislature, where he distinguished 
himself by those exhibitions of intellect which gave promise of 
future eminence. In his profession during many succeeding 
years, he rose to the highest class of legal minds, and at a 
period when Pennsylvania could boast of her Baldwins, her 
Gibsons, her Rosses, her Duncans, her Breckenridges, her 
Tilghmans, her Hopkinses, her Jenkinses, her Dallases, and her 
Semples, he was prepared for the struggles of the future, and 
soon became conspicuous among those who had but few equals 



4 MEMOIROF 

in their own times, and whose fame is still cherished among our 
most agreeable recollections. 

At this day, after more than half a century's intercourse as 
man and boy with the people of his own immediate district, and 
with the people of Pennsylvania ; after having figured promi- 
nently in the conflicts of parties ; after having shared the confi- 
dence of successive Democratic administrations ; after having 
contributed his energies to the overthrow of political heresies 
without number, he might leave his case to thousands and tens 
of thousands, who have at various times antagonized his 
opinions, but now, with the annals of his life before them, stand 
ready to pay their tribute to his consistency and to his integrity 
as a public man, by uniting with his political friends in placing 
him in the Presidential chair ! What nobler monument could be 
raised in commemoration of any American patriot ? What more 
significant refutation of all the accusations of heated party com- 
batants? What more conclusive proof could be given to the 
nation at large of the fitness and the merits of a statesman who, 
after such a lifetime, finds his indorsers in the hearts of the 
people among whom he has always lived, and his warmest sup- 
porters among men who have for more than forty years stood 
in opposition to his opinions ? 

It is said that the grave covers all, that malignity halts at the 
portals of the tomb, and that from its peaceful bosom spring 
flowers of reconciliation and forgetfulness of all evil passions. 
Those who now mourn over the humble yet immortal grave of 
Jackson rarely think of the calumnies which pursued him like 
so many unsleeping furies during his lifetime. In the universal 
homage paid to his memory, which rises forever like incense to 
the skies, how seldom we recall the bitter epithets with Avhich he 
was attacked during his illustrious career ! And yet that he 
was attacked, and that he was persecuted almost beyond 
parallel, is so. But he outlived detraction, and long before he 
passed to his final account, most of his enemies were translated 
into friends. We may say of James Buchanan, that, although 
still in the strength of public usefulness, he too has outlived 
detraction, and that the echoes of slander which sound up from 
the deep oblivio'n to which the accusations upon his character 
have been consigned, fall faintly upon the ear of the present 
generation. In the long catalogue of his public services and 
private virtues, we lose sight of the false charge of the personal 
foe, in the luminous and splendid aggregate of the patriotic 
character which he would impugn ! 

In 1820, James Buchanan was elected to the House of Repre- 
sentatives, and retained his position in that body for ten years, 
voluntarily retiring after the first Congress under the adminis- 
tration of Andrew Jackson. He was the warm and ardent 



JAMES BUCHANAN. 

defender of the administration of Mr. Monroe, the active oppo- 
nent of the administration of John Quincy Adams, and the con- 
sistent and trusted friend of Andrew Jackson. The proceedings 
show that while he retained a seat in the popular branch of 
Congress, he took a prominent part in all the debates upon 
great public questions. As early as 1815, he entertained 
opinions hostile to the constitutionality of the Bank of the 
United States, and in the fierce struggles which ensued upon 
the election of the hero of New Orleans, he was a distinguished 
champion of the Democratic party. 

Probably the most interesting part of Mr. Buchanan's history, 
■was his early and effective support of General Jackson for the 
Presidency. He was one of the first advocates of tlie hero of 
New Orleans. More than thirty years ago, as a member of the 
House of Representatives of the United States, he was recog- 
nized as among the most active and devoted friends of Jackson. 
Distinguished for his eloquence and his judgment, even in that 
period of his life, he contributed greatly to produce the state of 
feeling which afterwards put General Jackson forward as the 
De-mocratic candidate, — Pennsylvania taking the lead. Before 
the House of Representatives of the United States proceeded to 
elect a President (the people having failed, in 1821, to make a 
choice), Mr. Buchanan opposed, with indignant eloquence, the 
motion to sit with closed doors while that duty was being dis- 
charged by the representatives of the American people. He said 
(February 2, 1825) : 

" He protested against going into a secret conclave, when the 
House should decide this all-important question. 

"What are the consequences," said Mr. B., "which will result 
from closing the doors of the galleries? We should impart to 
the election an air of mystery. We should give exercise to the 
imaginations of the multitude, in conjecturing what scenes are 
enacted within this hall. Busy rumor, with her hundred tongues, 
■will circulate reports of wicked combinations and corruptions, 
which have no existence. Let the people see what we are doing. 
Let them know that it is neither more nor less than putting our 
ballots into the boxes, and they will soon become satisfied with 
the spectacle and retire." 

W^hen the memorable struggle of 1828 came on, Mr. Buchanan 
■was prominent in the contest. Indeed, he was so conspicuous 
that the opponents of Jackson bestowed a full share of th.e bitter- 
ness reserved for the old hero upon his elficient and faithful 
friend. Mr. Buchanan came into the House of Representatives 
for the last time in 182U. It was during this session that he 
displayed those eminent qualities which proved him to be one of 
the ablest constitutional lawyers in the country ; and in a body 
of which such statesmen as McDuffie, Wickliffe, and others, were 



6 MEMOIR OF 

members, Mr. Buchanan was selected as Chairman of the Com- 
mittee of the Judiciary, a duty for which he had been well pre- 
pared in the debates which had taken place in former sessions, 
between Mr. Clay, Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Lowndes, Mr. Randolph, Mr, 
Buchanan himself, and others equally eminent. When the cele- 
brated case of Judge Peck, of Missouri, came up before the House, 
Mr. Buchanan was the leading spirit in conducting the impeach- 
ment of that functionary. The House of Representatives, having 
heard the able arguments, on both sides, decided to present to 
the Senate articles of impeachment against Judge Peck, and they 
elected by ballot (May 30, IS^JO), five managers to conduct the im- 
peachment on the part of the House. They were, James Bucha- 
nan, of Pennsylvania, Henry R. Storrs, of New York, George 
McDufiie, of South Carolina, Ambrose Spencer, of New York, and 
Charles Wickliffe, of Kentucky. The display before the Senate 
on that celebrated trial, forms a most instructive page in history. 
Messrs. Wm. Wirt and Jonathan Meredith, appeared for Judge 
Peck, and on the part of the managers, Mr. Buchanan closed 
the argument in a speech of great length and profound ability 
and research. It is still quoted as one of the most masterly ex- 
positions of constitutional law on the public records. 

After retiring from Congress in 1831, he received from Gene- 
ral Jackson, unsolicited, the tender of the mission to Russia. He 
accepted that mission. How he discharged its grave duties, the 
archives of the legation and of the State Department, will show. 
Among other acts, he rendered the country important and 
valuable service, by negotiating the first commercial treaty be- 
tween the United States and Russia, which secured to our com- 
merce the ports of the Baltic and Black Sea, and insured to us 
a valuable and continually increasing trade. What reputation 
he left behind him, those who succeeded him are willing to attest. 
The chaste and manly tribute to his splendid abilities, at St. 
Petersburg, paid during the proceedings of the Convention, which 
assembled on the 4th of March, 1856, by his immediate suc- 
cessor in the American legation at that court, the Hon. William 
Wilkins, shows something of the habits and capacities of Mr. 
Buchanan. 

Shortly after Mr. Buchanan's return from the Russian mis- 
sion, the Democrats in the Legislature of Pennsylvania made 
hira their candidate for the United States Senate, and elected 
him. He remained in the Senate from the 6th of Decem- 
ber, 1834, until his resignation, March 3, 1845, having been 
twice re elected during that period of time. It is not necessary 
to recapitulate the distinguished services rendered by our great 
statesman, in the highest legislative body on earth, so well and 
so widely are they remembered. In the debate on the admis- 
sion of Arkansas and Michigan; in his opposition to the de- 



JAMESBUCHANAN. i 

signs of the abolitionists ; in his resistance and exposure of the 
schemes of the Bank of the United States, after it had been trans- 
ferred to Pennsylvania, as a vast political moneyed monopoly ; in 
his opposition to a profuse expenditure of the public revenue, for 
the creation of an unnecessary public debt; a government bank 
of discount, circulation, and deposit, under the British name of 
Exchequer ; a substitution of paper money for the constitutional 
currency of silver and gold ; the surrender of M'Leod upon the 
insulting demand of England; the unjust distribution of the 
public r'evenue, to the States of this Confederation ; in his cou- 
rageous hostility to special legislation, no matter how concealed ; 
he co-operated with Wright, Woodbury, Benton, King, Linn, 
and otherleadingDemocratsof thatday. As chairman of the Com- 
mittee on Foreign Relations, during a series of years, in the Senate 
of the United States, he sustained the honor of the nation, by 
his unanswerable demonstration of the right of each State to 
punish a foreign murderer, who, in time of peace, kills an Ameri- 
can citizen upon its own soil. His masterly expositions of our 
unquestionable title to the Northeast boundary line, were upheld 
by the decisions of Congress, and he won high honor for 
his opposition to a treaty which gave a large portion of the 
American territory to a foreign government. He was the advo- 
cate of a liberal and enlightened policy in regard to the public 
lands. During the memorable extra session of one hundred 
days, when the opponents of the Democracy, in the Senate of 
the United States, had resolved to push through a series of high 
federal measures, beginning with the Bank of the United States, 
and ending with the bankrupt law, Mr. Buchanan was constantly 
in his seat, and was frequently put forward as the leader of his 
party, in certain trying emergencies. An early and a fervent 
advocate of the annexation of Texas, he signalized his career 
in that body by giving his views on that important question to 
his countrymen, in a speech of unsurpassed ability and power. 

It is hardly necessary to go over Mr. Buchanan's record, to show 
how true he has been on all those great questions involving the 
rights of the States and the rights of the citizens of the States. On 
those delicate questions which tried so many Northern men, and 
which lost to the Democratic party of the country some of its most 
prominent leaders, who would not follow the doctrine of state 
rights to its just and logical conclusion, Mr. Buchanan was found 
unwavering and decided. In the exciting debate during the 
Congress of 1836, on the subject of circulating incendiary docu- 
ments through the mails of the United States, Mr. Buchanan 
spoke repeatedly in support of the Message of Mr. Van Buren, 
demanding the interference of the National Legislature to pre- 
vent the dissemination of appeals among the slaves of the South 
to rise in servile insurrection against the people of that quarter 



8 MEMOIROF 

of the country ; and on the question of the abolition of slavery 
in the District of Columbia, Mr. Buchanan used the following 
emphatic language: 

"What is now asked by these memorialists ? That in this Dis«- 
trict of ten miles square — a District carved out of two slave- 
holding States, and surrounded by them on all sides, slavery shall 
be abolished ! What would be the effects of granting their re- 
quest ? You would thus erect a citadel in the very hearts of 
these States, upon a territory which they have ceded to you for 
a far different purpose, from which abolitionists and incendiaries 
could securely attack the peace and safety of their citizens. You 
establish a spot within the slaveholding States which would be a 
city of refuge for runaway slaves. You create by law a central 
point from which trains of gunpowder may be securely laid, ex- 
tending into the surrounding States, which may at any moment 
produce a fearful and destructive explosion. By passing such a 
a law, you introduce the enemy into the very bosom of these two 
States, and afford him every opportunity to produce a servile in- 
surrection. Is there any reasonable man who can for one moment 
suppose that Virginia and Maryland would have ceded the Dis- 
trict of Columbia to the United States, if they had entertained 
the slightest idea that Congress would ever use it for any such 
purpose ? They ceded it for your use, for your convenience, and 
not for their own destruction. Wlien slavery ceases to exist 
under the laws of Virginia and Maryland, then, and not till then, 
ought it to be abolished in the District of Columbia.'' 

When, at the same session of Congress, the two bills were re- 
ported, admitting the territories of Michigan and Arkansas as 
States into the American Union, Mr. Buchanan was selected as 
the Northern Senator who should present the bill admitting Ar- 
kansas, and advocate it before the Senate, which he did with 
signal ability, and Mr. Benton was chosen as the Southern 
Senator who was to present and advocate the bill admitting 
Michigan into the Union. During the exciting debates on these 
issues, Mr. Buchanan spoke repeatedly. He took the broad 
ground that the people of the territory, having formed a Repub- 
lican Constitution, after the model of the other States, could 
be and should be admitted into the Union irrespective of slavery, 
and that Congress could not and should not interfere to prevent 
their a.dmission for any such reason as is now urged against the 
admission of Kansas. It was during the debate on the admission 
of Michigan that he used these memorable words, on the first of 
April, 1836, in his place as a Senator from Pennsylvania : 

''The older I grow^ the more I am inclined to be what is called 
*a state rights man.' The peace and security of this Union de- 
pend upon giving to the Constitution a literal and fair construc- 
tion, such as would be placed upon it by a plain, intelligent man, 



J A M E S B U C H A N A N, 9 

and not by ingenious constructions, to increase the powers of this 
government, and thereby diminish those of the States. The 
rights of the States, reserved to them by that instrument, ought 
ever to be held sacred. If, then, the Constitution leaves to them 
to decide according to their own discretion, unrestricted and un- 
limited, who shall be electors, it follows as a necessary conse- 
quence that they may, if they think proper, confer upon resident 
aliens the right of voting," &c. &c. 

And at the same time, in the very same speech from which the 
above is copied, he made the following eloquent allusion to the 
adopted citizens : 

" The territory ceded by Virginia to the United States, was 
sufficiently extensive for an immense empire. The parties to this 
compact of cession contemplated that it would form five sovereign 
States of this Union. At that early period, we had just emerged 
from our revolutionary struggle, and none of the jealousy was 
then felt against foreigners, and particularly against Irish 
foreigners, which now appears to haunt some gentlemen. There 
had then been no attempts made to get up a Native American 
party in this country. The blood of the gallant Irish had flowed 
freely upon every battle-field, in defence of the liberties which 
we now enjoy. Besides, the Senate will well recollect that the 
ordinance was passed before the adoption of our present Consti- 
tution, and whilst the power of naturalization remained with the 
several States. In some, and perhaps, in all of them, it required 
so short a residence, and so little trouble to be changed from an. 
alien to a citizen, that the process could be performed without 
the least difficulty. I repeat that no jealousy whatever then ex- 
isted against foreigners." 

After the splendid campaign of 18-14, which resulted in the 
election of Mr. Polk, to which result Pennsylvania, led by James 
Buchanan, contributed her electoral vote, the President 
elect, casting his eye over the long roll of Democratic statesmen 
then living, weighing the claims and the qualifications of each 
and all, profoundly sensible of the exciting questions which must 
come up for adjustment during his administration, and after 
consulting the venerable sage then in the sunset of life in 
the shades of the Hermitage, invited Mr. Buchanan to accept 
the portfolio of the State department, the head of his cabinet ; 
and in 1845, Mr. Buchanan resigned his seat in the Senate (to 
which he had only lately been re-elected), and became Secretary 
of State, under President Polk. Nor is it necessary that we 
should recapitulate his services in that department. They are 
fresh and familiar in all minds. His argument in favor of the 
clear and unquestionable title of the American people, to all 
Oregon, won for him the applause of the whole liberal world, 
and was published in several languages in Europe. The State 



10 MEMOIROF 

papers, on other great questions, proceeding from his pen during 
the four years he remained in the department of State, were so 
many contributions to the column which celebrates his eminent 
fitness, and his unsullied integrity. When the Wilmot Proviso 
was introduced into Congress, it was James Buchanan who at 
once denounced, and exposed, and rallied the democracy against it. 

It was during the administration of Mr. Polk, that Mr. Bucha- 
nan, in his letter to the Democracy of Berks County, Pennsylvania, 
first recommended to the North and the South, that the Missouri 
line should be extended to the Pacific, and that this should be made 
the basis of a final settlement of the slavery question in the terri- 
tories. The war with Mexico, consequent on the annexation of 
Texas, gave us a vast empire in addition to the area which consti- 
tutes our beloved Union, and in the arguments growing out of the 
acquisition of California, Mr. Buchanan labored earnestly and effec- 
tively on the side of progress. Mr. Buchanan's letter on this 
subject is of record, and speaks for itself. It is easy to recall 
the vituperation which his proposition to extend the Missouri 
line called forth from the fanatics of the North, from those who 
now clamor for its restoration, and who in insane forgetfulness 
of their hostility to it a few years ago, set themselves up as 
its peculiar champions. 

Mr. Buchanan's recommendation of an extension of the Mis- 
souri line was far in advance of public sentiment. It was hailed 
in the South by all parties as an exhibition of firmness only too 
rare in those days among Northern men, and it was appreciated 
by the truly national men of the free States. Would it not be 
strangely unjust, if this proposal of Mr. Buchanan should now 
be cited to prove him unsound upon existing issues? The spirit 
which actuated Mr. Buchanan in 1847, when he wrote his letter 
recommending the extension of the Missouri line, was to promote 
harmony among the States of this Union, by recognizing the 
principle of equality among the States, in regard to the common 
territories of the people ; and now, when the Missouri line has 
been superseded by another plan of settlement, the Nebraska- 
Kansas Act, based upon the same sentiment of State equality, all 
patriotic men will cheerfully abide by and vigilantly maintain 
it against the inroads of that abolition fusion which once more 
threatens to assail the constitutional rights of the South. The 
country will find, among its public men, no truer or firmer ad- 
vocate and defender of the great principle of popular sovereignty, 
as embodied in the Nebraska bill, than James Buchanan. 

Mr. Buchanan regiained in connection with Mr. Polk's 
administration until March 4th, 1849, when he once more re- 
turned to Pennsylvania, and from that period up to the elec- 
tion of the present enlightened Chief Magistrate, he engaged 
himself in pursuits congenial to a statesman of large and ex- 



JAMES BUCHANAN. 11 

tended experience. The conflict between the enemies of the 
Constitution and the Democracy, did not find him an idle spec- 
tator. He was in the fore front of the Democratic party, demand- 
ing for the South no hollow and hypocritical platform, but a 
broad, radical, distinct recognition of those rights, which cannot 
be equal, unless they are shared honestly and fairly between the 
people of all the sections of the Union. Everywhere, the Demo- 
cracy of his State felt and followed his wise and patriotic counsels. 
Whenever he emerged from his quiet home, it was to demand the 
recognition of all the guarantees of the Constitution to all the 
States. His letters and speeches in favor of the enforcement of 
the fugitive slave law — in favor of the repeal of the laws of 
Pennsylvania, enacted for the purpose of depriving the Southern 
citizen of the use of our jails for the safe-keeping of his fugitives, 
and his appeals to the Democracy of the State never to yield 
to sectionalism, conclusively show that he had not forgotten 
his duty to great principles, and that his attention was con- 
stantly fixed upon the importance of discharging that obligation. 
He was as vigilant in his duties as a private in the ranks of the 
people, as he was prominent as a counsellor in the Cabinet and 
as a representative and senator in Congress. 

During the Presidential contest in 1852, Mr. Buchanan stood 
in the van of the Democratic ranks. The following remark- 
able passages from his speech delivered to a mass meeting of the 
Democracy of Western Pennsylvania, on the 7th of October, 
1852, at Greensburg, Westmoreland County, are so characteristic 
of the man and his opinions that we do not hesitate to copy 
them. Remember that, at no time did he ever yield a jot or 
tittle to sectionalism. He Avas against it instinctively, and 
from the start. He said : 

" From my soul, I abhor the practice of mingling up religion 
■with politics. The doctrine of all our constitutions, both Federal 
and State, is, that every man has an indefeasible right to worship 
his God according to the dictates of his own conscience. He is 
both a bigot and a tyrant, who would interfere with that sacred 
right. When a candidate is before the people for office, the 
inquiry ought never even to be made, what form of religious faith 
he professes ; but only, in the language of Mr. Jefferson, ' Is 
he honest, is he capable ? ' 

" ' Democratic Americans !' What a name for a Native Ame- 
rican party ! When all the records of our past history prove 
that American Democrats have ever opened wide their arms to 
receive foreigners flying from oppression in their native land, and 
have always bestowed upon them the rights of American citizens, 
after a brief period of residence in this country. The Demo- 
cratic party have always gloried in this policy, and its fruits 
have been to increase our population and our power, with unex- 



12 M E :^I I R F 

ampled rapidity, and to furnish our country -with vast numbers 
of industrious, patriotic and useful citizens. Surely the name of 
'Democratic Americans' was an unfortunate designation for the 
Native American party. 

"The Native American party, an 'American excellence,' and 
the glory of its foundership, belongs to George Washington ! 
No, fellow-citizens, the American people will rise up with one 
accord to vindicate the memory of that illustrious man from 
such an imputation. As long as the recent memory of our re- 
volutionary struggle remained vividly impressed on the hearts 
of our countrymen, no such party could have ever existed. The 
recollection of Montgomery, La Fayette, De Kalb, Kosciusco, 
and a long list of foreigners, both officers and soldiers, who freely 
shed their blood to secure our liberties, would have rendered such 
ingratitude impossible. Our revolutionary army was filled with 
the brave and patriotic natives of their lands ; and George 
Washington was their commander-in-chief. Would he have 
ever closed the door against the admission of foreigners to the 
rights of American citizens ? Let his acts speak for themselves. 
So early as the 26th of March, 1790, General Washington, as 
President of the United States, approved the first law which 
ever passed Congress on the subject of naturalization ; and this 
only required a residence of two years, previous to the adoption 
of a foreigner as an American citizen. On the 29th January, 
1795, the term of residence was extended by Congress to five 
years, and thus it remained throughout General Washington's 
administration, and until after the accession of John Adams to 
the Presidency. In his administration, which will ever be known 
in history as the reign of terror, as the era of alien and'sedition 
laws, an Act was passed on the 18th of June, 1798, which pro- 
hibited any foreigner from becoming a citizen until after a resi- 
dence of fourteen years, and this is the law, or else, perpetual 
exclusion, which General Scott preferred, and which the Native 
American party now desire to restore. 

"The Presidential election of 1800 secured the ascendency of 
the Democratic party, and under the administration of Thomas 
Jefferson, its great apostle, on the 14th of April, 1802, the term 
of residence previous to naturalization, was restored to five years, 
what it had been under General Washington, and where it has 
ever since remained. No, fellow-citizens, the father of his country 
was never a Native American. This ' American excellence' never 
belonged to him." 

"The Fugitive Slave Law is all the South has obtained in this 
compromise of 1850. It is a law founded both upon the letter and 
the spirit of the Constitution, and a similar law has existed on our 
statute books ever since the administration of George Washington. 
History teaches us that but for the provision in favor of fugitive 



JAMES BUCHANAN. 13 

slaves, our present Constitution never would have existed. Th'ink 
ye that the South will ever tamely surrender the fugitive slave 
law to northern fanatics and abolitionists ? 

" And now, fellow-citizens, what a glorious party the Democratic 
party has ever been ! Man is but the being of a summer's day, 
whilst principles are eternal. The generations of mortals, one 
after the other, rise and sink, and are forgotten, but the prin- 
ciples of Democracy, which we have inherited from our revo- 
lutionary fathers, will endure to bless mankind throughout all 
generations. Is there any Democrat within the sound of my 
voice, is there any Democrat throughout the broad limits of good 
and great old Democratic Pennsylvania, who will abandon these 
sacred principles for the sake of following in the train of a mili- 
tary conqueror, and shouting for the hero of Lundy's Lane, 
Cerro Gordo, and Chapultepec." 

And when the campaign resulted in triumph. President Pierce 
tendered to Mr. Buchanan the leading foreign mission, which 
was accepted. Circumstances have transpired, within the last 
few years, to make the American mission to the Court of 
St. James singularly important, and it has happened that 
during Mr. Buchanan's stay in London, several great questions 
of a vexatious and complicated character have disturbed the in- 
tercourse between the two countries. However important to 
both the cultivation of continued peace and good will, the fact 
that Great Britain sees our growing progress with jealousy and 
alarm, and the fact that we behold her ijragmatical interference 
upon this continent wherever an opportunity is presented to her, 
with indignation, render our relations with Great Britain of the 
most delicate character. The very intimacy of our business con- 
nections, constituting, as it does, the real cord which binds us to- 
gether, is apt, moreover, to come in conflict with political con- 
siderations, and the commercial attrition, so to speak, throws into 
dangerous neighborhood English ambition on the one hand and 
American progress on the other. It has become proverbial that 
the selection of a wise, able and experienced man to represent 
the United States at the British Court, is one of the first duties 
of an executive, hardly secondary to the selection of its own chief 
cabinet ministers, because the English mission is always intensely 
important to the immediate interests of our people. During the 
trying time of Mr. Buchanan's mission, the whole nation seem to 
have become impressed with the importance and justice of these 
"observations. They felt that in the American minister they had-a 
man upon whose safe character and wise counsels they could con- 
fidently lean. Their eyes were constantly fixed upon him. Every 
steamer brought news occasioning the greatest anxiety to the 
commercial and other classes. On more than one occasion 
collision seemed to be inevitable, but every panic passed off. 



14 MEMOIROF 

The correspondence of Mr. Buchanan, such of it as has been 
published, exhibits oa his part a vigihmce, a discretion, an in- 
dustry, and at the same time a dignity of character, that have 
made his name a favorite name in every section of our beloved 
Union. In the later troubles which have given rise to so much 
excitement and discussion in Congress and the country, Mr. Bu- 
chanan has towered in all the dignity of his high character and 
intellectual superiority. He will leave his post to give way to his 
successor, having established renewed kind relations between the 
two countries, and having fixed upon the hearts of the English 
people the impress of a republican character, which has never, 
for a single moment, yielded its simplicity and its truth to aristo- 
cratic blandishments. Courted and flattered during his stay, he 
studiously abstained from paying tribute to English vanity. 
In all circles, and on all occasions, he displayed his Ameri- 
can dignity and his American patriotism. Never gratuitously 
obtruding his country and her advantages, he never hesitated 
to speak of her as a son speaking of his parent; nor was he ever 
actuated by any spirit of offensive partisanship. As he came so 
he goes, the same plain, untitled, unpretending American citizen. 
The highest classes vied with each other to do him honor ; and 
on a recent occasion, when the news of a threatened collision be- 
tween the two countries alarmed the people of both, his presence 
among the populace of London was greeted with cheers, an evi- 
dence that, however parties may intrigue, one honest, straight- 
forward patriot is sure to hold a high place in the affections of the 
masses. 

One great reason why Mr. Buchanan's name is at this moment 
so acceptable to his countrymen is, because he stands before 
them, not merely as an eminently capable, but as an eminently 
safe man. In the growing greatness of our republic, its increas- 
ing importance, commercially and politically, its extended and 
extending relations with other powers, not to speak of the efforts 
of reckless agitators against the Constitution and all the securities 
and guarantees of our domestic safety and tranquillity, we see 
the evidences that such a man would be able to confer signal 
benefits upon the American people in the Presidential Chair. 
For the first time in many years we behold in the person of 
James Buchanan, a statesman who combines the rare quality of 
having been among the very first, in every emergency, to take 
the most progressive view of every great question, and yet of being 
able to preserve, in the midst of such emergencies, the bearing, 
and to exercise the influence, of a sagacious and well-poised 
democratic statesman. It is this combination of elements which 
has awakened in his behalf the favorable sentiment of those 
classes of citizens who look for a wise and judicious administra- 
tion of the federal government, and which has also gathered 



JAMES BUCHANAN. 



15 



around him the warm and generous sympathies of the constitu- 
ents who confide in his progressive instincts, as illustrated 
through all his long and illustrious career. 

There is not now to be found a reasonable man in any part of 
the Union, who does not believe that Mr. Buchanan's nomination 
would be succeeded by his certain and triumphant election. To 
the South he presents no record inconsistent, even in the slightest 
degree, with that which induced the southern delegates to vote 
for him so long and so steadily in the Democratic Convention of 
1852. Now, as then, he stands forth the uncompromising enemy 
of their enemies ; the devoted advocate of their constitutional 
rights. To the Northwestern States he presents the unsullied 
record of one who has co-operated with their own pioneer repre- 
sentatives in Congress, in opening up our new territories to com- 
merce and to civilization. The Northern or Eastern States know 
him as the champion of their rights, when these were sacrificed to 
British rapacity. While in the Middle States it may be proudly 
said of Mr. Buchanan, with no disrespect to other candidates, 
that he is this day regarded as the very strongest man whom the 
Democratic party could nominate for the Presidency. The 
dividejj household of our political friends in New York would, 
we believe, find in his name, the olive branch of harmony and 
peace ; the Democrats of Ohio would, under his banner, advance 
to that victory which their patriotic efforts so well deserve ; and 
Pennsylvania, standing between these two gigantic states, would 
pronounce for such a candidate, with such a majority as would 
recall the days when these three commonwealths constituted the 
very fortress of the Democratic party in the free States. 

During Mr. Buchanan's absence of nearly three years, while 
politics raged at home, he proudly abstained from interfering 
with the struggle for the Presidential succession. From the 
time he set foot on English soil, he wrote back to his friends, 
that in no contingency would he place himself in the field 
as a candidate for the Presidency. There was nothing of 
grief in this resolve, nothing of disappointed ambition. It was 
the calm and deliberate judgment of a mind, which, having 
looked carefully over the political past and future, had come to 
the conclusion that the day for the scramble for Presidential 
honors had passed away — at least with him — and that he was 
determined to apply himself to other pursuits. We assert, that, 
if every private letter, written from London since his absence, 
by James Buchanan, in the unsuspecting confidence of his heart, 
should now be published, and laid before the American people, 
there would not be found one line, no, not one syllable, manifest- 
ing a desire- for the nomination of the Democratic Convention, 
or suggesting any way by which it might be obtained by himself. 
Even since he has become formidable as a candidate, his letters are 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 

HiMli. 

w W11 898 355 5 W 



animated by the same generous spirit. And the very fact, that he 
has taken this course, from a conscientious belief that it wouhl be 
out of place for him to struggle for the nomination, has made him 
acceptable to the masses in every part of our country. Absent he 
is, it is true, but his image is before their eyes wherever they 
go. In distant lands, it is true, but his counsels have been felt 
as if he were present among us. Contending with the giants of 
foreign diplomacy, it is true, but the thoughts and the words he 
left behind him, are his living representatives. The people 
will judge of him by the recoid, by the even tenor of his life, 
by the spotless purity of his character; by his undaunted patriot- 
ism, and by the trophies with which he returns to his native 
shores, to be crowned, as we confidently hope, with the highest 
honors of the Republic. 

JOHN W. FORNEY, 

Chairman of the State Central Committee. 

GIDEON G. WESTCOTT, 
ISAAC G. M'KINLEY, 

Secretaries. 

GEORGE PLITT, 

Treasurer. 
Philadelphia, April, 1856. 



